The great Prohibition debate takes center stage as a Canadian lawyer delivers devastating testimony to the U.S. Senate. W.E. Raney, former attorney general of Ontario, tells lawmakers that legalizing 4.4% beer was a complete failure—'those who wished to drink beer protested there wasn't enough kick,' and license holders used permits 'as shields to sell stronger stuff.' Meanwhile, Wayne Wheeler of the Anti-Saloon League marshals his forces with military precision, calling University of Chicago's A.A. Stagg and Yale professors to counter claims that Prohibition corrupts college students. The dry forces have organized their case like 'a militant army,' meeting nightly to plan the next day's witnesses. Closer to home, 12-year-old Carl Moreland has run away from his Huntington, West Virginia home for the twelfth time in two years, making it all the way to Indianapolis by stealing restaurant meals and bumming rides. 'It's easy,' he boasts to police, though he warns about the 'police hazard' and avoiding freight trains because 'railroad dicks watch us fellows pretty close.'

This page captures America at a crossroads over Prohibition, six years into the 'noble experiment' that defined the 1920s. The Senate hearings represent the growing national debate over whether the 18th Amendment was working—with real evidence from Canada showing that compromise solutions satisfied no one. The military-style organization of the Anti-Saloon League reflects how Prohibition had become a cultural war, not just policy debate. Young Carl Moreland's casual expertise in cross-country vagrancy hints at how the Jazz Age's spirit of rebellion extended even to children, while stories of rum tax fraud and hi-jacker gun battles show how deeply organized crime had embedded itself in American life by 1926.

• Twelve-year-old runaway Carl Moreland had perfected a system: eat first at restaurants, then inform owners he was 'broke,' and ride interurbans until conductors kicked him off for lacking tickets
• The government alleges E.R. Squibb Company defrauded them of $380,205.20 by withdrawing 92,906 gallons of whiskey for 'nonbeverage use' that ended up in bootleg trade—paying $2.20 per gallon tax instead of $6.40
• Thousands of British housewives went on a 'Strike against strikes,' leaving beds unmade and dinners uncooked in 20,000 homes to march in London and show that 'real sufferers from strikes are women and children'
• Mayor Duvall defended deposing park board president Kinsley W. Johnson, complaining that board members promised cooperation but never consulted him 'with the single exception of Mr. John K. Milnor'
• Daniel Owens, 59, a hay wagon driver at the stockyards, died falling from his load—police suspect he had a heart attack mid-work

• Wayne Wheeler, the Anti-Saloon League lawyer organizing witnesses 'with the precision of a militant army,' was known as the most powerful man in America—he claimed credit for making and breaking politicians and boasted he controlled six Congresses and two Presidents
• That 4.4% beer Canada tried? It was called 'near beer' in the U.S., and breweries like Anheuser-Busch survived Prohibition by making it, along with ice cream, root beer, and even truck bodies
• University of Chicago's A.A. Stagg, called to testify about college morals, was college football's first superstar coach—he helped create the forward pass and would coach until age 70, winning more games than any coach in history
• The Tacna-Arica territorial dispute mentioned in Kellogg's proposal had been festering since the War of the Pacific in 1879—it wouldn't be resolved until 1929, with Tacna going to Peru and Arica to Chile
• That Charles R. Forbes being sued by the government was Warren G. Harding's Veterans' Bureau chief whose corruption scandal helped define the administration as one of America's most corrupt